Currently unbikeable, Richmond Highway could get a cycletrack

Since 2015, Virginia and Fairfax County have been studying Richmond Highway and how to make multimodal improvements to it. In November of 2017, Fairfax County planning staff assessed and refined the recommendations of the 2015 Alternatives Analysis for the corridor from Huntington to Accotink Village/Fort Belvoir and created a plan which included continuous bicycle and pedestrian facilities in the corridor. It also has BRT in the center and an extended Yellow line beneath.

The pedestrian and bicycle networks on Richmond Highway will provide multimodal alternatives to automobile travel and provide important connections to destinations within the corridor and beyond. These networks should be designed, built, maintained, and operated to a high standard in order to attract users, to achieve the transportation goals for the corridor, and to provide residents and visitors with appealing travel options to work, shopping, recreation, or other daily destinations.

The primary bicycle facility is a pair of 7.5 mile long separated bike lanes.

North of Napper Road, 6.5-foot buffered cycle tracks will be built on each side of the road, separated from the road by an 8-foot wide landscaped panel. The cycle track may be constructed at the grade of the roadway or raised to the level of the sidewalk. And it will then be separated from the sidewalk by another 2 foot wide utility Strip.

South of Napper Road, 6.5-foot buffered cycle tracks will again be built on each side of the road, but separated from the street by a 5.5 wide landscaped panel. The cycle track may be constructed at the grade of the roadway or raised to the level of the sidewalk, and it will then be separated from the sidewalk by another 4.5 foot wide landscaped panel.

Bicycle facilities are also planned to connect adjacent neighborhoods and commercial districts strung along Richmond Highway to the cycle tracks. Those facilities will be based on what kind of street they're on. On "Major avenues" that should be a 6 foot wide bike lane with a buffer.

On lesser "Avenues", a 5 foot bike lane would be standard. "Livability spines", specialized types of Avenues that will function as pedestrian corridors, will have a shared use path (unfortunately called a "walkway").

On "local Streets", bikes will share the road with cars. So-called "Ecological Spines" might also have room for bikes.

The plan also calls for safe, secure, and convenient bicycle parking all along the corridor.

The planning commission and Board of Supervisors have already had hearings on this and approved it, so I'm not sure if there will be additional opportunities for comments (if so, I might ask them to change the name of the walkways. If biking is allowed, it's not really a walkway). The BRT environmental study isn't scheduled for completion until 2021, so there's likely time.

This is a completely transformational project and I look forward to riding out that way in 2028.

The $215 million widening, which is expected to start in 2023 and finish by early 2026, would include bus lanes down the middle of the road, new bike lanes and sidewalks. The process to buy land needed for the widening could start next year.

The first public meetings on the Fairfax County Richmond Highway bus rapid transit project are scheduled for April 17 at West Potomac High School and April 18 at Mount Vernon High School.